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A Dead Horse: One Last Lashing

To paraphrase Lt. Colonel Frank Slade: ‘Oh uh, Waded- about your little problem- there are two kinds of people in this world: those who stand and face the music, and those who run for cover. Cover is better.’ Cover is all in the perspective. The Regents, Christian and Cruzado may all see themselves as having faced a painful decision and ‘faced the music’ because of their conflicted feelings and ‘hurt hearts’. Others, like many of us, see them as having done nothing more than run for cover. In pouring their conflicted and tormented hearts out to anyone in the room or tuned in via the internet they exposed themselves in having opted for the easy path. To lament the pain of the decision and then vote in favor of accepting money, and lots of it, from a discriminating racist really only serves as an attempt to gain sympathy. In reality, to have wrestled with the decision and then voted down the ‘gift’ would have been facing the music in a more than a few ways. However, that horse is dead on the ground and it’s getting to be time to move on.

There still exists a problem and one that will bring itself back to the Regents at some point in the not so distant future. Whose money do they accept and who’s do they turn away and for what reasons. In fact, and on a deeper level, this is a timeless question: how much will it take to buy the moral and ethical compass of a human being. Humankind has fought with this animal since the quest for food and shelter was managed and we could consider greater things in the world. For instance, getting someone else to do our dirty work for us and in hopes that there will be personal gain as a result. Gianforte may have achieved just that in getting President Cruzado and those poor and tortured Regent’s to do just the same.

Maybe we should go easy on everyone involved here. After all, no one has figured this out yet and this isn’t the first time anyone has had to look in the mirror and wonder about who they are and what lives inside their own soul. For instance, shortly after the end of World War II a great deal of information was discovered that had been gathered as a result of incredibly horrific human torture. Many of those tortured were ‘subversives’ to a pure nation: minorities, gays, disabled, the unwanted of that pure nation. As a result of that inhumane torture we gained a much more accelerated understanding of multiple physical conditions both induced and environmental. The very real question at the time, and today an academic one: should that knowledge be used knowing how it had been gathered and that it would likely save lives or should it be destroyed knowing that it’s origination was far to horrific and unethical to be considered.

By no means does Gianforte’s ‘donation’ rise to this example. However, as an individual who has a public record of stating his personal point of view regarding humankind that does not match up to his own theological standards, there is far more to his $8 million than just a name on a building. There is truly the question of what is the greater good. In this case the question should have been one is it ethical to accept and promote his brand of quiet, calm hate while ignoring the souls and minds of those who will pass under that name each day and wonder what that pang of uneasiness is within themselves. And speaking of an uneasy feeling, it has to be wondered out loud after having made that decision and taken Gianforte’s tainted money: President Cruzado, what is that uneasy feeling that wakes you up during the night? Or does it?